He's heating up!

Yesterday I had the privilige of watching my boss in action. He was on fire, I had never seen him like he was today. Usually we, me, him, and whoever else is in the meeting, yet today he had a mission. I am not sure if it is due to the size of the project and its complexity, with the deadline coming closer fast, yet I left the (long) meeting with a sense of awe with the powerful organising vision. The bar has been set high now on how to run the show and inspire your workers. It was magical, watching an artist create a masterpiece or watching a sunset over the ocean.

I was really impressed and am inspired that one day I will be able to do something like this on a project that I work on.

Looking the wrong way.

Now i see the problem.

I thought it was that the system was way to complex and that no-one really knew anything. I now feel that I have been enlightened to the problem and realise that, as the song says, nothing can save us.

The three main protagonists are representative of the somewhat different foci of paleo-climatologists, climate modellers and economists. Very broadly speaking, paleo-climate science is built around the analysis of single location time series (often from holes that are drilled). Climate modellers spend a lot of time trying to see what is coming up in all it's complexity, while economists tend to eschew complexity and look for insight in highly idealised situations. But in order to increase the credibility of models, they have to do well at simulating past climates and what might happen in the future is certainly informed by what has happened in the past. And in order to better understand the impacts of climate change and various proposed policies, economists will need to embrace the complexity of human-climate interactions while modellers need to better understand what aspects of climate really do make a difference. None of these things will happen if we continue to all look in different directions, and more problematically, fail to support and reward those scientists who want to bridge the divides. Sea monsters notwithstanding.

I do think the picture is really clever.


Source

Seriously

Are they for real?

In the news

Well not really. Yet kind of. It's like the role of an employee of a bar was vital in giving a singer a drink before a live performance, who rocked a sold out concert was important to the overall picture. And that is me and my contribution to the Garnaut Review (sounds like the Stern Review). The review is a draft report on climate change and has just been released and is making the news. I spent numerous days before christmas collecting the data and passed it on to be adjusted as needs be. If you look closely you can see absolutely none of my contribution in chapter 4 , and actually I am not sure where my work went, however chapter 4 was the most likely place (having read a bit of it [it is over 500 pages]).

You can download the report here.

Well anyway, lets get back to rock music as I saw this clever sign recently.

Triple M - Australia's Classic Rock Radio Station

My home

I have been working at the CSES for about 3 months now and I haven't got a name on the door, so I decided I would use my time wisely and make one. Now this required me to think very carefully about what I do at work. Essentially I push a mouse around all day. In a more global sense I create or sometimes if luck is on my side I recreate data. I give it a little extra flair - a touch of evil. Hence the title of my cage, oops, I mean room. After posting the sign on the door noone noticed.

It took three weeks for anyone to notice. I guess the boredom of statistics transends my room. Then someone must have noticed as people started to ask me if I would like to be paid in bananas, which amuses me. Now anyone who really knows me, knows that scotch or vodka would be the appropriate currency.

Big head time!

While working in Vietnam I had the luck to be able to work on a few research projects. Most were directly related for the university's performance identifying weakness and strengths within the economics faculty. However the last project that I did was a study on the Pangasias (Tra & Basa [Vietnamese] catfish) value chain. This project looked at the uncertanties facing the industry at the industry level to identify where improvements could be made to ensure that the livlihoods of those working in it could be secured for the future.

While working on this project I met another Australian who had done similar work in Laos, and had proposed to do a project for the whole Mekong region, Vietnam, Cambodia, & Laos. He was in the process of writing the application when we met and was fishing around for ideas and collaborations. I really liked his enthusiasm when I met him and it gave me a push to complete the project, as my comitment was starting to fade.

Well yesterday, I was in contact with my old boss and he informed me that the funding for the project was secured and the individaul project proposals are taking shape and my work on the catfish value chain is the basis for his project. I was pretty much blown away when I heard that and my head swelled to an all time size, bigger than the Eureka tower shown from my work in the in right side of the picture. I am now on a work high, as this I think is the biggest accomplishment from any work I have done previously. However, I am going to try to top it with the current work on climate change, and try to make my work make a difference for the better.

Looking southeast from my work with the Eureka Tower at the right

The focus of the photos is beyond the buildings that is why the Eureka Tower is not well shown.

Another shot from work with the Eureka Tower at the left.

Someone notices

I have been working at CSES now for about two months on a project for the SEEK employment index. Essentially my role was to write programs to analyse the number of applications and number of advertised jobs and pass them onto my supervisor. It was a frustrating experience writing the code and organising the data so that it runs right. I was satisfied when on Monday this week I had finally finished that project.

That night though I actually wondered if anybody besides my boss ever read the report that is produced each month. I started to think that in general, the more you get paid the less impact your work has. As a teacher at AGU I wasn’t paid much yet it was bang for buck for those I worked with – students, staff, and community people.

Here in Australia, we have a lot of people paid good salaries and it appears that not much is really done. Although people produce work it is not as obvious as it was at AGU or work in a restaurant or on a construction site. So I was surprised today when I opened the newspaper and saw a reference to the SEEK EI report. I was proud that some of the work I did possibly benefited some people and made it into the press.

The project that I am currently working on is one on climate change. I hope that this will also have some impact. The impact is getting a lot of money for our centre and to run lots models – and running the models is my thing.